III. Sustainable Soil Health Management Approach with Farmer Participation for Higher Crop Productivity in Andhra Pradesh

Transcription

1 III. Sustainable Soil Health Management Approach with Farmer Participation for Higher Crop Productivity in Andhra Pradesh 1. Introduction Soil test based nutrient supplementation and integrated nutrient management has emerged as a key precursor for migrating our agriculture into a commercial and precision farming. The existing practice of perception based or competition based application of fertilizers by the farmers is a losing game on all respects. This unscientific fertilizer use has led to excessive use of certain elements such as N and under use of other elements. For example, in the NPK balance has changed from 3.8: 1.7: 1 in to 6.1:3.1:1 in in AP. This has increased the cost of cultivation, sub-optimal productivity in majority of cases and soil and water related pollution problems and health hazards to the people. Though there is a need for covering the micronutrients including their status in our soils, crop requirements and supplementation depending on the crop situations, still a long way to go for micronutrient inclusive approach both in testing and farm practices. Cost of such testing and access to such facilities are the constraints hindering the spread of micro-nutrient supplementation. Appropriate Soil health Management strategy with farmer s participation can take the agriculture into next orbit and this can be a beginning for moving towards precision farming in the State. The practice of fertilizer application by the farmers is no way correlated to the nutrient status of their farms. The districts of AP have been grouped into low, medium and high NPK status by ICAR as given below. Nutrient Status Districts of Andhra Pradesh is mapped and grouped the districts according to the levels of major elements i.e. N, P, K. Nutrient Districts Low Medium High N Chittoor, Cuddapah, East Godavari, Guntur, Krishna, Kurnool,Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, West Godavari Anantapur Prakasam Nellore Srikakulam P Anantapur, Chittoor, Cuddapah, Guntur Krishna, Kurnool Nellore Srikakulam East Godavari, Prakasam, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, West Godavari K East Godavari Anantapur, Chittoor, Cuddapah, Guntur Krishna, Kurnool Nellore, Prakasam, Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, West Godavari Source: DAC website 101

2 However, the farmers are not fully conversant with the status and their fertilizer usage habits are not in tandem with the existing status. This results in wastage of nutrients and also other problems discussed earlier. Farmers are still not adopting this practice for various reasons Ongoing efforts There are number of ongoing efforts over the plan periods. Important initiatives are listed below: i. All India Coordinated Research Projects at Indian Institute of Soil Science, had been conducting research for the last few decades to develop relationships between soil test values and crop response to fertilizers, in order to provide a calibration for fertilizer recommendation based on soil testing. They have come up with soil fertility maps for various nutrients. The correlation models thus developed by this work is being used by the Soil testing laboratories to recommend the fertilizer dose based on the soil test results. ii. ICAR had also initiated soil nutrient mapping. The maps are very broad in nature and farmer specific use is limited. The maps of Guntur district so developed are given in annexure I. Based on the work done so far, it is seen that the NPK application is highly skewed in favor of N i.e. there is excess use of N based fertilizers and resultant problems. iii. The erstwhile United Andhra Pradesh has soil testing programme out through network of 91 soil testing laboratories comprising of 2 Regional Soil Testing Labs, 26 District Soil Testing Labs, 5 Mobile Soil Testing Labs and 58 Mini Soil Testing Labs at Agricultural Market Committee level. The facilities available are given below: Sl. No. Type of Soil Testing Lab Nos. Facility 1. Regional Soil Testing Labs 2. Macro & Micro nutrient & water analysis 2. District Soil Testing Lab 26 Macro & Micro nutrient & water analysis 3. Mobile labs 5 Macro nutrients 4. Agricultural Market Committee level labs Total Macro nutrients After State bifurcation, the soil testing infrastructures need to be assessed and plan for full coverage of Andhra Pradesh State with respect to distribution of the facilities. iv. Soil Testing Campaign: A campaign mode of promoting soil testing practice was attempted during April, The campaign was aimed at creating awareness among the farmers about judicious and integrated use of fertilizer based on soil test data. and also take certain samples for testing and feedback. The impact is yet to be assessed. v. Farming Situation wise Soil Sample Collection: State has also initiated soil fertility mapping according to farming situations. In the erstwhile United Andhra Pradesh there were 240 Farming Situations. This approach can broadly help in assisting and advising the farmers for nutrient application. v. Distribution of Soil Health Cards: Based on the soil sample being collected from the villages, farmer wise soil health cards were issued. In the erstwhile united AP, about lakh soil health cards were issued till March

3 vi. Bhuchetana - Mission Project on Bridging crop yield gaps through Science- Led Development in Andhra Pradesh ICRISAT - led consortium started a project by mapping out the nutrient deficiencies in the soils and developing mandal wise balanced nutrient recommendations with ultimate goal to increase average productivity of target crops in the selected districts by 25% in five years. This also envisages preparation of GIS based soil maps for both micro and macro nutrients. The project started in and continuing during and The impact of the project is yet to be seen as the project is still under implementation. 2. Need for the Project Despite the effort of various agencies, still majority of farmers are not yet convinced about the usefulness of the soil testing based nutrient application for increased productivity of the soils. Though the soil fertility status of some of the nutrient elements has been done in the State, its felt need is not discerned by the farmers, as reflected by lack of demand for soil testing. This broad data or information on mandal level or district level is not usable by the farmer as he cannot adopt for his farming enterprise. There is no farm specific recommendations so that the farmer can tailor make his farming practices. Thus the practical application of the soil test results by the farmers is still a distant dream. Therefore, the demand for soil testing is not growing among the farmers. In order to bridge this last mile connect, there is a need for focused approach on saturation basis and with long term engagement. There is also a need for understanding the whole situation from farmer s perspective and reorient the initiatives in such a way that the demand for soil testing will be created automatically. Ideally speaking, all the farmers, before beginning of the season, let us say in the month March, should draw soil samples and send to the laboratory. Immediately after receipt of the results, they should plan their corps, fertilizer procurement, going for green manuring or bio-fertilizer, soil amelioration measures etc. This should happen automatically every year. The facilities must be made available for such demand both in terms of cost and physical access. The complete process must evince trust and the farmers must be made to appreciate the scientific basis of farming and thus leading to precision farming. The proposed project must address the issues in the selected project area. Availability of timely soil test results to the farmers Trust and credibility on the test results Availability of results in implementable language and crop specific and farm specific recommendations As an attempt to address the problems envisaged, this project is conceptualized with the following objectives. 3. Broad objectives i. Demystifying the soil fertility management and integrated nutrient management in the language of the farmers ii. Campaign mode mobilization of farmers for resorting to soil sampling iii. and approaching soil test laboratories through participatory approach. Awareness programs for interpreting the soil test data to crop specific situations and use of the information for better farming. iv. Migrating the project area to opening balance and supplementation approach in soil health management v. Promoting green manure as foundation for soil health improvement 103

4 vi. Promoting an local entrepreneurs and training for setting up of PPP soil testing and soil health management clinics in the area who can drive for sustainability. 4. Project Area The project area will consists of 20 villages in Ananthapur district. The villages will be selected based on evaluation of secondary information and nearby availability of soil test infrastructure. 5. Components of the Project i. Base line status assessment The project area will be assessed for base line status of various parameters related to soil health and crop practices. This will be done by mapping the farms in the project area and resource mapping of individual farm and digitization of data for further development. The help of ABM students will be used for this purpose. ii. Linking up the project area with the Soil testing facility The project will be networked with the nearby soil testing facility and if not accessible for all types of testing, the next nearby facility will be networked and tie up for testing. iii. Farmers will be involved in the planning and execution of the project through participatory approach. This will help in creating appropriate environment for the project. iv. Environment creation through IEC activities The importance of the soil test based use of nutrients and crop management practices require social mobilization and social engineering to enable the farmers to realize the need and move to voluntary drawal of soil samples and seeking out advise from the experts. The social mobilization and making the message to reach the farmers mind, number of activities will be taken up continuously in the project area. The activities will include socio-cultural events about the theme, display of soil maps, nutrient characteristics, neighborhood gatherings, PRAs etc. v. Facilitating interpretation and adoption of soil test results to farmers situation The data on soil test results need to be interpreted and converted to farm specific, crop specific situation. Unless the message is in the form understandable to the farmers, they will not respect and adopt it. A system with the help of an expert will be created to transform the results into farmer friendly language and content that can be identified with his situation. This will help in promoting the use of that information and adopting scientific soil health management practices. vi. Evolving soil test based nutrient application and integrated crop management packages Location specific crop specific modules will be prepared based on the existing soil fertility status and updated for the use of farmers and they will be used for training the farmers. vii. Promotion of Bio-fertilizer units in the area and its application Soil health management require bio-fertilizer usage along with inorganic fertilizers. However, its availability at village level is a problem. Therefore it is proposed to involve the local entrepreneurs to start the bio-fertilizer production units. The nearby production units 104

5 will also be tied up with the project area for easy and affordable supply. viii. ix. Facilitating green manuring and local organic recycling The organic content of the soil is depleting. The farmers of the project area will be encouraged in growing for green manuring. The project will help and tie up the seed supply of appropriate green manure crops. The crop residue usage in the project area will be evaluated and come up with better use of such residue including its recycling for augmenting the organic content. Customizing an existing ICT application for ensuring integrity of soil sampling and test result communication to farmers The soil sampling done by the department agencies is not linked to the geographic location and not traceable as the farmers involvement is not assured. The unethical practices are likely to creep into the system and the whole effort will go waste as the soil collected may not be corroborate with a specific location. It is proposed to develop a mobile application that can be used with latitude and longitude of the location of the sampling, and generation of sample code with lat and log points. Mandatory use of this application by all sampling agencies can ensure the integrity of the soil sampling and also helps in automatic GIS mapping. The project will cover application development and piloting in the field in the project area. Similarly the application will also enable the communication of the test result to the farmer in an adoptable fashion. This will be seemless application that can keep track of the total process. x. Promoting Agri-clinic for sustainable soil health assessment unit in the project area with the support of the farming community. Once a momentum is created in the project area for soil testing, there will be a need for promoting an Agri-clinic in the nearby vicinity with a local entrepreneur, who can continue the activity on sustainable and business model by charging the farmers. Once the farmers see the benefit then they will create the demand for such service. The ongoing scheme of assistance for such an activity will be leveraged. xi. xii. Launching Total Soil health Literacy campaign in the project area, where in all farmers will voluntarily draw the samples on a fixed day and hand over to the soil test facility. The results will accordingly be used for promoting integrated nutrient management and integrated crop management in the area. The ongoing scheme of supporting such soil testing will be leveraged for this program. Evaluation At the end of the project, an evaluation will be done to understand the impact of the project and also take it forward to make it sustainable. 105

6 6. Project Progress ( ) The progress of project during with details of activities is presented below: S. No. Activities Activity Details Progress 1 Identification of FUs Assessment and Identification Field Units Positioning of Technical and Admn. In progress Teams Orientation meeting of Project Staff In progress 2 Identification of Villages Shortlisting of Villages Preliminary visits to Village 3 Village & Farmers survey Preparation of Village & Farmers Survey Format Orientation of Staff on PRA & Survey Village Survey through PRA & Interview 4 Preparation of manual or Meetng on existing conetnt, need bulletin on Soil Health assessment and outlining the Management Practices for requirements selected Crops Detailing of contents Finalisation of Soil Health Management Practices Printing of Soil Health Management Practices 5 Identification of Resrouce Persons 6 Soil Sampling (Saturation Identification & Linking of Soil basis) Testing Agency 7 Identification of Expert agency for preparing promotional materials Training of FUs on soil sampling In progress In progress In progress In progress 8 Promotional Material (Videos, Phamplets, Posters etc.) Content Generation Printing of Promotional Material Skill development on Soil Sampling and interpretation of soil health reports Facilitation for creation of Agriclinics Positioning of Agri-clinics In progress In progress To be done To be done 9 Creating IT/Mobile Platform In progress 106

7 1. Budget The project will be executed over two year period by adding new villages in the second year. The first set of the villages will be continued to be guided in the second year for stabilization of the practice. The total cost of the project is Rs (Rupees sixty five lakh and eighty four thousand only). The summary of the total cost of the project is given below. Number of Panchayats in the project area Activities Total cost of the Project in 20 villages of two districts ( ) Number of programs/ Cost of each program Total Base line status assessment Training of Resource farmers Training of farmers and awareness creation IEC Activities Recurring cost of the project Customising the results and communication to farmers Extension communication mobilisation cost & soil sampling with unique code generation along with lat long Maintenance of IT enabled platform Field day for total coverage of soil sampling and motivational activities Support to Bio-fertilization production unit Hand holding of the project farmers of 1 st year Evaluation of the impact of the project LS LS Sub Total Institutional 7.5% Grand Total Remarks Contiguous area of villages will be selected. Complete mapping of the farms, farmers, farm resources, existing status of practices etc Selected progressive farmers will be trained on need and method of soil sampling All farmers of the village will be covered Needed for creating right environment in the project area Back office customization with the help of experts The project coordination and monitoring for effective execution Meant for setting up a monitoring system with bare minimum infrastructure Conducting motivational competitions in the villages and to declare total soil health literate village etc. Promotion of local entrepreneurship for production and supply To ensure the 20 villages farmers of the project area of the 1 st year to continue the soil health management practices through IEC activities. An independent team will be involved for concurrent and final evaluation 107

8 2. Monitoring Annual evaluation of the project will be taken up after the end of the project. Intermittent assessments will be done for improving the project execution. 3. Project Period The project will be executed during However, the first year project area will be supported during second year also. By the end of the second year the Agri Clinic will be taking over the activity on sustainable basis. Table 3. Implementation Schedule Activity Training of Resource farmers Training of farmers and awareness creation IEC Activities Customising the results and communication to farmers Extension communication mobilisation cost Maintenance of IT Platform for continuous data flow Field day for total coverage of soil sampling and motivational activities Evaluation of the impact of the project Feed back and submission of final report Month June July Agust Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb March 108

9 Annexure I Write up about Food and Agri Business School Introduction Former Director-General of FAO Mr. Jacques Diouf commented that The silent hunger crisis affecting one sixth of all of humanity poses a serious risk for world peace and security. There is an urgent need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world. In order to face the challenges of agriculture sector and ensuring global food security, four major deficits of the Agri and allied sectors viz., Technology deficit, Infrastructure deficit, Investment deficit and Managerial deficit are to be managed by any Nation. The Technology Deficit and Managerial deficit are to be addressed by creating professional competency among the mangers of the sector. This is aimed to be addressed by the creation of Food and Agribusiness School at Hyderabad, Telangana State, India. Food and Agri Business School (FABS), is an innovative initiative of SVVR Educational Society at Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. FABS aims at molding the youth as entrepreneurs and professional managers for converting agriculture from a way of life into an enterprise. This has come into existence in the year 2009 in a sprawling campus near about the International airport of Hyderabad. Vision Vision of FABS is to provide world class platform for education, research and knowledge creation in food, Agri business and allied sectors, and to strive to transform agriculture from a way of life in to an enterprise. Major Programs and Activities FABS portfolio of programs and activities include education, research & consultancy, training, and publications & knowledge dissemination. 1. Academic Programmes FABS is offering academic programs at two levels: a 2-year, fully residential Post Graduate Diploma in Management (Agri Business) (PGDM Agri Business) will be the FABS s flagship program. Other academic programs of varying duration will be for undergraduate students, Practitioners, Industry based managers, market leaders, farmers etc. FABS has designed and launched short duration certificate and diploma programmes in agri business and Agri technology management for 10+2 and undergraduate students. FABS will collaborate with SAUs, ICAR institutions and other institutions. 2. Research & Consultancy Agri business is a very young discipline in the management education arena. It has very limited literature books, cases, case studies and rigorous research papers that address managerial issues. Hence, FABS s research programme is designed to: 109

10 Help improve the management of Agri business and rural enterprises and projects; and Undertake basic and policy research into the managerial issues in various subsectors of Agri business and rural development to augment the existing body of knowledge on the subject. FABS plans to develop its research programme along two discernible streams: A mainstream management research where the focus is on understanding the operational problems faced by Agri business and rural organizations in order to help evolve feasible solutions. A great deal of such research will be in the form of case research and consultancy projects. The other stream will lead to research in wider issues of transformation of agriculture in general and Indian agriculture in particular from its present form of a way of life into an enterprise. In both the streams, the relevance and saliency to Agri business sector will be the guiding factor in the choice of research issues by FABS s faculty. FABS will identify themes and commission research projects on these areas on its own and will take up research and consultancy projects for the industry, NGOs, Government, Farmer s groups, associations, organizations, International agencies etc. it will also collaborate with other institutions to take up research programmes on topics of mutual interest. Some of the areas where FABS has expertise and take up consultancy projects are listed below: Field research for feasibility analysis, Project formulation and execution Project Management consultancy for implementation of various programmes Evaluation and Monitoring Market led extension support ICT applications for Agri-projects, programmes, Schemes etc. Market analysis Farm advisory services Input and output studies Export/Import feasibility studies, legal requirement analysis and hand holding Supply chain management, identification of sourcing hubs, Infrastructure needs assessment and formulation of plans 3. Training FABS also realize that the middle and senior employees should be provided with an opportunity to get an exposure to formal management education and training and to keep in touch with the developments taking place outside of their work place. Management Development Programmes (MDPs) will be the vehicles through which 110

11 FABS will contribute to upgrade specific professional managerial capabilities of managers and executives of Agri- business and rural organizations. Thus, the MDPs will supplement the two year programme in Agri business management and make use of research and consulting experience of FABS s faculty in specific management areas. Some of the areas of expertise are as follows: Capacity building in various government programmes Training on market led extension Management skill training to lower level and middle level industry managers. Management skill training to SHG groups, Farmer groups, Associations, NGOs etc. Project formulation and execution ICT applications for Agri-projects Supply Chain management 5. Infrastructure Facilities FABS is located at a healthy and picturesque location called Flame of Forest at about 40Km from the Hyderabad City Centre, Telangana State. The location is known by its endemic presence of beautiful Flame of Forest grooves. Apart from FABS the campus houses Sagar Global Business School (SBS) and Sagar Institute of Technology (SITECH) and Sagar Agri Polytechnic, all of which have synergy and complementarily. The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad is just 30 Km away from FABS. 6. Government Approvals The group institutions are approved by Government of India and different schools are affiliated to respective Universities. All India Council of Technical Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India approved the institutions. Since the institutions are just 5 years old, no rating is done by any external agencies. 9. Faculty & consultancy resources Some of the important faculty resources are given below. In addition to the listed faculty, large number of faculty resources are working in the institution with Master s degree. They are from technical, agricultural and management fields. XX. Dr. Nagashivanand, B.Sc (Agriculture), Master of Business Administration, Ph. D in Management, with 30 years of work experience XXI. Dr. M. N. Reddy, B.Sc (Agriculture), Master of Sciences in Extension Education, Ph. D in Agriculture Extension, Worked for 10 years as Professor in Agricultural Extension in Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University, AP, 25 Years as Director in MANAGE, Ministry of Agriculture Government of India XXII. Dr. A.M.C. Mohan Rao, M.Sc., (Zoology), Ph.D (Rodent Ecology), SV University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, Faculty in Sri. Venkateswara University, Tirupati, Advisor in All India Coordinating Research Project on Rodent Control, Jodhpur ( ), Dy. Director, Central/National Plant Protection Training Institute (from 1981 till 2008), Director, National Institute of Plant Health Management (from 2008 to November, 2012), FAO Senior Consultant for China, for Armenia, 111

12 Expert adviser to North Eastern States and all other states on rodent management, and on prevention of Rodent borne Zoonotic Diseases XXIII. M. Venkateswara Reddy, M.Sc. (Ag) in Agricultural Extension, 32 years Principal Scientist (Agricultural extension) with Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University XXIV. Dr. C. S. Murty, M. A. (Applied Economics), FELLOW (IIM Calcutta) with 33 years of experience in teaching and research. He has published number of books XXV. Prof. P. Gidda Reddy, B.Sc (Agriculture), Master of Sciences in Extension Education, Worked as Director of Extension of Andhra Pradesh Agriculture University, with 30 years of rich experience in agriculture. XXVI. Dr. V. Raghava Reddy, former Vice Chancellor of Acharaya N.G. Ranga Agriculture University, Hyderabad is guiding the institution as an adjunct faculty and resource person. XXVII. Dr. Kalva Mahadeva Reddy, M.Sc. (Ag) and Ph.D. in Agronomy XXVIII. Shri. B.V.R. Murthy, B.Sc. (AG) 38 years of exp. In Directorate of Plant protection, Quarantine & storage Ministry of Agriculture & Cooperation Department of Agriculture IV. Study of Climate Change impact on problematic weeds and weed communities in rainfed and irrigated agro ecosystems through e-weed surveillance and arrive at weed management strategies in the state of Andhra Pradesh 1. Introduction: The economy of the state is basically agrarian in character. Agricultural sector in the state of Andhra Pradesh contributes to more than one-third of Gross State Domestic Product. It supports more than two thirds of the rural population. The development of agriculture is an essential pre-requisite to the state. The climate of A.P. is predominantly semi-arid to arid and humid to sub-humid. Based on agro-ecological factors (length of growing period, soils, rainfall, topography, etc) five agro-ecological zones were identified in A.P. They are: (1) North Coastal zone, (2) Godavari zone, (3) Krishna zone, (4) Southern zone (5) Scarce rainfall zone, (6) High altitude zone. The important crops of the state are rice, sorghum, pearl millet, maize and finger millet among cereals; blackgram, greengram, horsegram, pigeonpea and chickpea in pulses; and groundnut, castor, sesame and sunflower among oilseeds. Important cash crops are sugarcane, cotton, chillies and tobacco. Besides these, vegetables and fruit crops viz. mango, banana, citrus etc. are grown predominantly. The major cropping systems followed in different agro-climatic zones are rice and groundnut based, maize and sorghum based, millets and groundnut based. Intercropping of groundnut with pigeonpea, sorghum with pigeonpea, pigeonpea with blackgram etc. are popular in different regions. The percentage of irrigated area is below 40 percent. The Gross area irrigated has been on the increase from percent in to over the years due to increase in dugwells and borewells.. There is a shift in cropping pattern in the state (Table: 4) with a definite change in favour of commercial crops due to several factors including commercialisation of agriculture. The total area under jowar, bajra, caster and cereals decreased significantly, while the cultivable area under rice, maize, groundnut, oilseeds, cotton, pulses increased proportionately. The yield and 112